Muslims 'face discrimination'
2006-12-18 14:14
Vienna - Europe's Muslims face deep-seated
discrimination in education, housing and jobs that can alienate
them from the mainstream, but say they could do more themselves
to connect with wider society, an EU report said on Monday.
The study by the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and
Xenophobia is the first to cover Muslims across the European
Union and coincides with growing scrutiny of EU Muslims spurred
by terrorism and increased immigration from the Islamic world.
Entitled Muslims in the European Union - Discrimination and
Islamophobia, the 115-page report was accompanied by interviews with mainly young Muslims describing experiences of being marginalised even if they were European-born EU citizens.
"A question I have heard many times is, 'When are you going back?' I say, 'I was born in Rotterdam so where would I go?' It's a really painful question and makes you feel like a foreigner..., accept that you are a foreigner at some point," a Dutch Muslim woman said in the survey.
The EU has 15 million Muslims, the second largest religious
grouping in the 25-nation bloc.
Presenting dozens of polls and case studies in various EU
nations, the report said many Muslims, especially the young,
struggled with myriad barriers to social advancement, giving
rise to "feelings of hopelessness and exclusion".
"Islamophobia", borne of an increasing tendency to associate Muslims in general with terrorist acts by a relative few, had intertwined with pre-existing xenophobia to fan discrimination in many walks of life, the report said.
"Available data shows that European Muslims are often
disproportionately represented in areas with poorer housing
conditions, while their educational achievement falls below
average and their unemployment rates are higher than average."
Headscarves disqualify job-seekers
Such ills have been blamed for rioting in France's heavily
immigrant suburbs and violence in Berlin schools.
Interviewees agreed that Muslim women who wear headscarves
had the hardest job getting jobs, saying many employers feared
they would drive away customers.
In the Netherlands, some young Muslims said they had been
placed in school classes segregated along ethnic lines because
they were branded "foreign", even though they were Dutch-born.
A German of Turkish heritage said a teacher described to his
class how Ottoman forces once marched to the edge of Vienna.
"He said, 'Thank God we beat them or you guys would have big problems.' He looked to the boys (in class) and said, 'You all would have been circumcised.' Then he looked to the girls and said, 'You would all have to wear headscarves.'
"When I went home I had a guilty feeling about what a bad
culture I come from," the young man told the interviewer.
The report said Islamophobic acts were mainly verbal rather
than physical but remained severely under-reported, making it
difficult to develop effective counter-measures.
Yet Muslims also saw they could do more to help themselves.
"Interviews show that many Muslims acknowledge they
themselves need to do more to engage with wider society, take
greater responsibility for integration..., to move away from
being inward-looking," the report said.
The report urged EU policymakers to fully apply
anti-discrimination directives, mandate diversity training for
police, ensure school classes are ethnically integrated, and
encourage balanced media coverage to avoid stigmatising Muslims.
- Reuters